my friend's mother died

when these things happen, it's always sad. i never know quite what to say, and i'm never near where my friends are because i live so far from everyone... but this one hurts me. after her mother passed, she put up a message on Facebook that said, "hug your mothers for me, even if they're a pain in your ass."

i get what she meant. but i am not able to do that.

a coworker this week asked me about my mom. she was curious. she was appalled (or shocked?) that i couldn't remember the last time i had spoken with her. i think it was at her father's funeral, but i can't remember anymore. this coworker asked so innocently, "will you talk to her ever again? what about if she was sick or in the hospital?"

my mother's aging is something that i've thought about at times, but it leaves mixed feelings. i don't know what i would do if she were suddenly in a hospital and dead three days later, like my friend's mother. i don't know how i would react. i don't know how the ball of guilt and shame would weigh me down -- surely, it would. but i can't deal with it now.

maybe if and when the time comes, i'll know how i want to react. i'd feel so much better if i had a plan for the inevitable. but how can you plan that?

i can't hug my mother. i've already grieved for her for many, many years. the woman alive now is someone i don't know - my mother, the mother i knew and loved, is long gone. the woman alive now is a shell of the woman i loved as a child, and i don't know if i'll mourn her in quite the same way.

well, these are sad thoughts for a sunday night. for now, i will comfort my friend as best i can - without ever saying, "i know how you feel." i don't. i don't think i ever will.

fading rage

the anger with her has dissipated. after so many years of raw, unmitigated rage, i am left with a peaceful hollow feeling. it has been a weird journey, and i know it's not over. but the girl i was - the one who wrote those blog entries in 2009 - is not who i am now. the woman i am now is much stronger, more resourceful, more compassionate...

i have been meditating on who i am a lot lately. i lost myself for a long time. i now recognize myself in the mirror. i may lose it in moments here and there, but overall, i am finally, finally comfortable in my own skin. i may not like everything i see, but that's just the physical stuff. the mental stuff - the emotional stuff - that, i OWN. i am proud of it. i am celebrating it. 

i am who i am because of my parents. because of the family members and friends that have held my hands over the past ten years. because of my own relentless determination that i would not, could not, ever give up. i had a very deep conversation with my therapist this week, and she started to cry when i said something. we were talking about how i had overcome some really dark emotions at work, and i said, "i might not get it right, but i'll try and try over and over again until the cows come home." 

she said she got emotional about it because it "sums you up so perfectly."

i will falter. i will struggle. but unlike the girl who tried desperately to keep herself together in the aftermath of her mother's abandonment, i am already together. i am able to cope, and recognize, and understand, and adjust. those abilities weren't there ten years ago. 

so here i am. still under the weight of being motherless, but learning to rely on my own inner mother. i have been thinking of her a lot lately, and her own path compared to mine. by now, she was a mother. at my age, she was married with a new child, and seemingly had all the things that should've felt like fulfillment. her illness stole that. i am proud of who she was, and is. it doesn't mean i'm ready for her to be back in my life - i'm not - but i am proud to be her daughter. that isn't something i would've said ten years ago.

i'm saying it now. i am the daughter of a mentally ill woman, and i am going to be ok.

(now, if only i could make as much progress on the physical stuff.)

the deafening, deafening silence

i am having trouble remembering how long its been since i've seen her in person. or heard her voice. it occurred to me that i have to stop and think about how old she is now, and even harder to remember details about her. i have not heard from her in months, and the sound is stifling.

and always, the thought lingers, "when will the other shoe drop?"

this quiet cannot, and will not, go on forever.

happy little normal life.

i didn't realize how long it's been. i'm going to chalk it up to the fact that i am truly able to handle things in my life so much easier now.

i actually travelled all the way to confront the man i was starting to fall in love with, and had my heart smashed like a piñata. but the toolbox i've developed over the past year - the self-love i've been trying to practice - has helped me so much. i am so much quicker to bounce back.

my job is going fine. my daily life is going fine. i've started running, which i've discovered is as therapeutic as an hour in my therapist's office... i'd like to believe that this is my true self. it feels as if the last ten years of healing were just me surviving. that it was just a decade of going through the motions and putting all my energy into working and hating myself.

lately, it's been different. i think that the guy helped with pushing me into thinking about certain stuff. he made me see myself differently. worthy of love. of sex. of someone wanting me for me, even if he didn't want me permanently in his life because his own was too complicated to add another issue. but i told him things in our brief moment together. that i wanted to run again. that i wanted to start my life, but for real. that i felt left out of so many things. and having that moment with him, although brief and passionate and real for me, just left me convinced that what i want is a partner for my life, and a family of my own. i'm so over the waiting game, and telling myself that i can't have these things.

i'm ready for a new story to tell myself.

i feel so powerful. so beautiful. so ready to take on my life. its a paradigm shift that has been slowly building over the past two years, and i love it. i love feeling like i can take any knock. i love that i can think about my mom lately, and feel less like weeping. there's an emotion there that i can't name yet, but it reminds me of acceptance or resignation.

i had a dream about her the other week that was so real i woke up in tears. but it did not destroy me. it did not level me emotionally. i acknowledge the feeling, and moved on with my day. a few years ago, that dream would have curled me into a ball for days. not now.

i am so much stronger than i used to be. and i am on the right path. i know i am.

thank you for still reading, out there. you are more important to me than you will ever know. and i am always here for you.

same old thing.

why am i so quick to give my whole heart? to someone who doesn't want it, or doesn't have room for it?

i'm pining away for a man that i don't get to have. even if he wants me too. it's incredibly unfair, and all too predictable.

a small setback.

i had a hard week.

it was set off by a familiar pattern of falling hard for someone, although this time i think it was actually mutual for a minute. he chickened out on me. i took it hard. i'm still taking it hard. for the first time in a while, i was smiling again about someone. and even now, i'm still not convinced that he doesn't want something more from me. but i won't push. i want someone who is as crazy about me as much as i am about him, and who thinks finding someone amazing is worth crossing a canyon full of reasons why we shouldn't try. this ones going to hurt for a while.

after that whole mess happened, work became really hard. some projects are going on, and i was doing a lot of work at home. i'm feeling stressed, and alone in the responsibility.

i also have to move in 3 weeks. which i don't want to do.

and then, out of nowhere, i had a super-intense conversation with a coworker about my mother.

i had already been thinking about her a lot this week. it feels like any time i have a moment where i feel hurt or stressed, it's even harder for me to push away the thoughts of her. i hate that i don't have a mother to call and cry to. i hate that there is no reassuring motherly voice on the end of the phone telling me it's all going to be ok. my aunt and my father try so hard to fill that void, but there are times when it just isn't enough. and the feeling this week was just... overwhelming. soul-crushing. hysteria-inducing.

i was having a full-out moment where i just needed to cry, and reached out the only way i had at my disposal -- a photo of my mother on instagram with a caption that read, "if i just name this feeling, maybe it'll calm down and go away. missing my mom today." i let it out while i was at work, and somehow stemmed the tide of tears that were threatening me every second.

i should've known what would happen afterwards. my entire family freaked out on me. i had phone calls of "are you ok?" "what happened??" and i instantly regretted the entire thing. but the more i thought about it, the angrier i got at my family. why shouldn't i be able to express myself about my mother? why should i have to edit my feelings every single waking minute? sure, Facebook is probably not the best place to express it, but at least it's an outlet. that has to be better than letting it fester and not talking to anyone about it.

in hindsight, i shouldn't have done it -- i knew what my family would think and worry about. but i think deep down i needed to send up the flare. i needed to send out a giant message that said, "sometimes i'm still not ok." because pretending that i am, all the time, is utterly exhausting, and really just a giant lie.

i'm not always ok. i'm not always sure that never speaking to my mother again is the right decision. i'm not sympathetic to my family's worrying about me. sometimes i just want to scream, and rage, and tell the world just how much it sucks to be motherless, and not care about the consequences. is that wrong? is it really the expectation that i need to edit every thought i have in real life?

this blog is so important to me. you have no idea. if i didn't have this space in which to be honest,  i don't know how i would function.

i should shut my mouth.

every once in a while, i start to find myself telling people in my everyday life about my mother. they ask a simple question, or they are going through a terrible situation, and i just let it out. the entire story.

i was delivering a review to one of my employees, and we were talking about anger control. and i told him about the phone call from the police officer the other week, and how i wanted to actually react, but couldn't because i was at work. and then he was apologizing i went through that, and sorry i didn't have my mom, etc. etc.

i immediately regretted telling him and yelled at myself to shut my damn mouth.

it's hard for people to relate to my story, and telling them always seems to put them in awkward positions. i don't want them to feel compelled to say something that i don't necessarily need or want to hear.

crazy dreams.

i woke myself from a terror-inducing nightmare where the highlight was my mother arriving here, and chasing me up and down a street full of shops, and me trying to desperately hide but never feeling safe. i was trying to beat her to my store to warn them that she was coming.

if that isn't a mindfuck to start my day, i don't know what is.

side note.

i'm falling for someone, and i can't do anything about it. it's such a shame.